Eldon-Online

Hong Kong's Got Talent; So Let's Worry About It - The Hong Kong Disease

Talent, in Hong Kong, appears to be suffering from Acquired Nationality Syndrome. Find a person to do a job within Government, with the right credentials and potential for the future, make the appointment and then - oops, get told that the candidate is unsuitable because of their passport; because they are "obviously not loyal" to Hong Kong. What are we thinking of - does it actually matter what nationality a person has, acquired or otherwise, if he or she is willing to devote their energy and efforts to further the prosperity and well being of Hong Kong? If they are standing for the post of Chief Executive or another senior Government position then, yes, there is a case to be made for ensuring that the potential candidate is politically correct, but at deputy minister level?

This is not a debate about the credentials of the people chosen for the roles, nor is it a debate about salaries - it is the principle behind the idea that is being questioned. The money, frankly, shouldn't matter a great deal anyway - Hong Kong's civil servants have always been right up there in salaries with the business community, so by all means pay people for the job they do - and judge them by the results. If that means firing them too - so be it.

Maybe I am not a good example, but I have a British passport. Does it mean that if I am able to contribute something to Hong Kong that might help, I should keep quiet? I received a question from the Hong Kong media some months ago, after my "appointment" as Adviser to incoming Korean President Lee Myung Bak was announced, when they asked why I had not helped Hong Kong; I responded, tongue in cheek, that I had not been asked. Of course I don't think I need to be asked, and I believe that I have in a number of very small ways been of some help to Hong Kong through involvement in the TDC, various other Government bodies and charities and the like, and I propose to continue doing so. But take a person like Alan Zeman, who I don't think has a Hong Kong passport (I may be wrong Alan, and if so, apologies), but what a huge amount someone like him has contributed to Hong Kong.

 I have no aspiration to be a deputy minister, but I am sure there are many excellent Hong Kong born Chinese, with foreign passports, who would willingly contribute to this city. I presume they are now precluded from doing so.

I do wish, sometimes, that we would just stop this bickering. This navel gazing, This desire to worry ourselves silly over issues which, if viewed in a broader perspective could be dealt with more maturely than demanding apologies from the CE in Legco for perceived heinous "crimes" that are rarely worth more than a few column inches in the media. Or maybe a few comments in Legco, if our representatives have something worth saying. It is a rearward looking disease, common to Hong Kong, that is generally counterproductive to the way forward, and suggests that we should consider nominating the ostrich to be the national bird of the city.

There is much talent resident in Hong Kong, with many good ideas. We should harness it and use it. The results might be positively startling - but then we would certainly worry about who to blame for that too!    

Let The Good Times Roll; Crisis Over?

First an excuse. May was manic and blogs, though started, never saw the light of day, bar one. So June will be quieter and more productive, yes? Well if you ignored the "Sell in May and Go Away" warning, then you can quite possibly spend the next month or or so on a quiet beach in gentle relaxation - if your airline is still operating and if you believe you will still have a desk to go back to. If you haven't gone away, hold on to the edge of your seats in Asia, because it could get choppy.

We still have falling markets, rising oil prices, falling food production and rising inflation. We have apparently rigged elections in Zimbabwe (I know, not Asia - just testing!), concerns about chickens in Hong Kong (no, you guess which sort!), mad cows in Korea, the lack of visas in China and the Olympic Games (by the way - who's going to get in without a visa?), a new rapprochement with Taiwan and the list goes on....including an upcoming US election, the result of which - to be debated for the next few months ad nauseam - with no immediate signs of a US economic decoupling from Asia, is going to have an impact on what happens here.

Some of these topics are for later, but for now the "economy" has the floor. I have said before, I am not an economist - and I guess it shows! I am a retired banker whose crystal ball now is no better than it was before I retired - and back then it was flawed - just like the ones used by everyone else. Which is why rather than listening to theories that may or may not be right, I rely on gut feel and taking an interest in what is happening in real time around me, to draw my own conclusions.

In this regard, I have been struck by the kaleidoscope of news, good and bad in the financial markets during the year to date, and the aftermath of the seismic shocks created by the sub prime crisis (which should be better known as the structured debt finance crisis). Yes, say the headlines, the US "nearly" slipped into recession but escaped it narrowly and now things will be better. I hear from some quarters cries of "the market crisis is over!", and "the worst is behind us".

I am pleased to hear it. At least it makes my decision to cement my ties with Hong Kong even stronger, by venturing once more in to the property market, not such a bad idea after all. That said, I have also been given some pretty solid reasons to venture into the jaws of the Dubai property market too, but Hong Kong remains the base!

However, if the crisis is really over why are the airlines needing to increase the cost of flying anywhere, and beginning to drop frequency on routes? Why are the G8 demanding that oil producers increase their output, only to be rebuffed with a comment that the output is sufficient but that consumption elsewhere is over the top - and to note, for example, that SUV sales in the USA are down by about 30%, year on year. Target sold half its credit card receivables to JP Morgan last month - a good deal for both, or was it? Some folk are not so sure. And these are problems at the high end of the market.

Inflation is beginning to affect everyone, and strike action in Europe for example is becoming more common.

What about food? There is perhaps at last some recognition that food, its production and its cost is an issue. People are dying of starvation and, yes, there is some help at hand (although whether it reaches the right places in some countries is debatable). 

And let's not forget natural disasters - as well as the reaction to them. The Chinese calendar for the Year of the Rat, which is this year, was generally not propitious and so it is proving. Myanmar, China, killer storms in the mid-West, Japan's earthquake yesterday, Greece - and we haven't got into either the typhoon or hurricane seasons yet.

Crisis Over? - I don't think so!